


the inconvenient son

by togglemaps



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Homophobia, M/M, Marriage, Mention of attempted rape, Role Reversal, Throbb Week, Tumblr ficlet, i swear to god this is way fluffier than it sounds, throbbweek17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 02:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14534652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togglemaps/pseuds/togglemaps
Summary: Robb wasn’t welcome at the dinner his reunited family were having. It pained his sisters, but his mother insisted. “He betrayed us,” she had said to Bran, as though Robb weren’t standing in front of her. “I won’t break bread with him, not ever again.”Leaving the North with Theon had been a betrayal of his family, he knew that, but it would have been no less a betrayal to let Theon flee Westeros alone.





	the inconvenient son

**Author's Note:**

> A THING I wrote for Throbb week last year and hadn't gotten around to crossposting til now (l o l), which very loosely falls into the role reversal prompt. Basically, everything happens a number of years later and when Theon is about 24/25, he and Robb flee the North and spend their life together in Braavos, both of them working as mercenaries, Robb as a sellsword and Theon as a sellsail. Both ended up highly regarded, Theon a commander of a fleet of sellsails and Robb basically working as a strategic consultant for various people. After Ned is executed, Robb returns to Westeros to help his family, which some of them are kind of dicks about. (A combination of homophobia and you betrayed us!!!! how dare you run off with the greyjoy boy!!!!!) Theon ends up teaming up with Dany and at this point they’ve retaken King’s Landing and they’re working it out with the other lords, basically. 
> 
> Oh and I’ve just handwaved the white walker stuff, because I literally couldn’t get it to work in my head at all with Rickon being the Stark who’d be leading the Northern army to war. 
> 
> For a really short thing this has a lot of backstory. (Probably because it's an excerpt from the end of a much longer thing that I will never write b/c dear god, too long, my jon/tormund series nearly killed me.) 
> 
> Unbeta'd and only lightly edited, just fyi. 
> 
> CW for a mention of attempted rape and some homophobia. Details in the notes at the end in case you want them.

Robb wasn’t welcome at the dinner his reunited family were having. It pained his sisters, but his mother insisted. “He betrayed us,” she had said to Bran, as though Robb weren’t standing in front of her. “I won’t break bread with him, not ever again.”

Leaving the North with Theon had been a betrayal of his family, he knew that, but it would have been no less a betrayal to let Theon flee Westeros alone. Perhaps they would have understood if there had been some danger, but there hadn’t been. Theon had been five and twenty and Robb had watched the certainty of his captivity wear him down until he could take it no more. “I’m going to die here,” Theon had whispered to him one night. “I can feel it. I’m never going home.”

When he’d told his mother he’d no plans to return to Winterfell, that he was returning to Braavos with Theon when the war was over, he’d thought she would spit on him. She grieved for his father desperately and the war had changed her, as wars always did. He’d thought himself beyond being bothered by such things.

Bran could have insisted, but he hadn’t. That hurt too, but Robb knew why. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t seen the discomfort on Bran’s face whenever Theon’s name was mentioned, even now, with Theon’s fleet in King’s Landing’s harbour, with the Dragon Queen’s beasts flying overhead.

He dined with Theon instead, in the chambers he’d been given in the Red Keep after Daenerys had made him Master of Ships.

She seemed to like Theon, had snapped at a Riverlands lord who had spoken harshly of Theon and Iron Islanders in her hearing. Robb couldn’t help liking her, not least because she seemed to like him too. She had greeted him warmly the first time they’d met, smiling like she knew a secret. (Which, it turned out, she did. Tyrion had once tried to press a whore on Theon despite his refusals. “You have no wife, and even if you did—” Tyrion had said, to which Theon had replied, “I have no wife, it’s true, but I stood before a heart tree and said vows and I intend to keep them.” Tyrion had laughed and laughed and shared the story with the queen, who hadn't laughed.)

“I told you I’d come back to you,” he said to Theon. The table was laden with more food than anyone could possibly be able to eat, servants hovering to refill wine glasses, to serve more food. They had six servants in Braavos, for cooking and cleaning and to make sure they knew everything that was going on in the city.

There were four servants in the room, waiting to do something, anything, fearing what they would do if they grew angry.

It was exhausting.

Theon ducked his head, smiling. “Yes. Yes, you did. Though technically, neither of us can be said to have returned at all. We’ve never been to King’s Landing before.”

Robb wanted to go home to Braavos. He hadn’t thought he would, had thought it would be as heartrending to leave Westeros the second time as it had been the first.

He would miss his sisters, would even miss Bran and his mother, as he always had. He would regret that he hadn’t been able to see Rickon again, see Winterfell one last time, see Jon at the Wall, but he wouldn’t regret leaving.

He just wasn’t sure they were still going back to Braavos.

Robb wasn’t blind to Theon’s frailties, and his desire to rise above other men, to be seen as _worthy_ and _better than_ , was chief amongst them. It had been at its worst when he was younger, but it’d never truly gone away. He was a good captain, a good commander, a good employer, but he was so magnanimous about it, as though it was such a good thing he was doing, like he could discard that magnanimity at any moment. This served him well with the men he asked to follow him into battle, but it gave his interactions with others a condescending edge that irritated people to no end. Robb could admit to enjoying the way Bran and his mother had resented Theon’s offer to speak to the queen on their behalf. Theon had, after all, done it on purpose that time, smiled that smile he had and been so cloyingly sympathetic that Robb had wanted to laugh.

He loved Theon Greyjoy, a man who could often be described as a complete fucking prick.

Theon had more respect and power and importance than he had ever had, probably more than he ever imagined he _could_ have. 

It seemed unlikely he would want to give it up. 

“I want to go home,” Robb said.

Theon’s smile faded. “To Winterfell?”

“No, you fool. To Braavos.”

“Braavos? Your family—”

“Need me gone. Some of the Northern lords like me too much and others hate me even more than they hated you. I slept with a knife clutched in my hand every night. I never used it, but…” He shook his head. “If I go back to the North, if I stay in Westeros, one day I’m going to have to use it. I know it.”

Theon grimaced. “You always sleep with a knife in your hand when you’re on campaign.”

It was true that he slept with a knife in his fist every night he was on campaign and had since he had been nothing more than another sellsword. Nobody trusted sellswords for a reason, but that wasn’t the only reason he had done it. He shared his bed with another man and some men were under the mistaken impression that a man who willingly laid with one man would willingly lay with many. Some thought him a pervert, an abomination towards whatever god or gods they worshipped.

If he were honest, he didn’t give a fuck the reasons a man gave for attacking him in the night. He just wanted to be able to sometimes forget that such men existed.

“It isn’t any other campaign. If we stay here, it will be forever. It will be—” He would have no place left to him, not even with Theon. “I won’t watch you marry someone else, I won’t do it. I won’t live on fucking Pyke as your fucking mistress, I won’t—”

“What the fuck are you even talking about?” Theon asked, bewildered. “I want to go back to the islands, yes, because I want to see my mother one last time before she dies. I don’t want to stay there. I certainly don’t want to get married again, seven hells.”

“ _Who the fuck did you marry the first time_?” When had Robb started yelling? He honestly couldn’t have said, could feel something like hysteria welling up inside him.

“Who— _you_. I married _you_ ,” Theon shouted.

Robb remembered, remembered standing before a heart tree and whispering vows, knowing that in only a few weeks he would leave Winterfell and the North forever. He had felt the precious weight of those vows all these years, the eyes of the heart trees watching them the only witness they had needed.

Of course they were married. Robb had only ever really thought of them as vows, as something that bound him to Theon, but…the words they had spoken were marriage vows. The ones Northerners always spoke beneath the heart tree, yes, but more than those few words too. Vows of love and fidelity and to stand together, always.

They hadn't been easy vows to keep, but they'd kept them.

“I—yes. Of course. I—yes. I’m sorry. I—”

Theon stood and walked around the table, pulling Robb roughly into his arms.

“They’re eating without me,” Robb whispered.

“I know.”

“They didn’t want me there.”

“Sansa and Arya would have welcomed you,” Theon said gently. “Maybe Rickon too, if he were here.”

They stayed like that for a long time, clutching each other tightly. When they finally drew apart, Robb asked, “Could I go to the islands with you?”

Theon smiled. “Of course. Maybe one of your sisters would like to go to Braavos with us when we get back, just for a little while.”

Robb nodded. Just for a little while. That would be—he’d like that. Yes.

**Author's Note:**

> Robb discusses having been on campaign and having been attacked in the night due to other sellswords assuming he'd be cool with them raping him b/c he's cool having sex with Theon, b/c logic fails some people. 
> 
> He also mentions homophobia of other sorts, including some members of his family rejecting him b/c of his relationship with Theon and the actions resulting from that and also a very brief mention of religious homophobia, ie 'how dare you be in a relationship with another man, my religion forbids it!!!!!'


End file.
